At the end of the day, all that is relevant is the instructor. While TKD is generally considered, from small schools to the multinational federations, to be ultimately useless, I can say that I have seen a few TKD instructors who taught something much closer to Shotokan Karate. I've seen awful, just fucking horrendous Muay Thai and BJJ instructors. I trained under an amazing Hapkido instructor, who taught nothing resembling Aikido or TKD, and taught something that just ravaged me on a daily basis almost more than the time I spent in Muay Thai. Krav Maga is one of "those" arts, like Wushu (and Kung Fu in general), where 99% of the people who are teaching it are going to be obnoxious jack-offs who spent a few years training under obnoxious jack-offs and eventually got a blackbelt from the internet from some shell company in another country.

I gotta agree, it's more about who is teaching you and what their focus is then the particular style. If you want to learn self defense then go study with someone whose focus is on realistic self defense. The most useful material you'll learn is being aware of your surroundings, not looking like a victim, and keeping yourself out of situations where you'll have to actually use physical violence. As far as actual physical techniques you'll want to learn relatively simple techniques that will allow you to basically hit and run in most circumstances. Self defense isn't dueling, it's self preservation. Depending on your size and strength you might want to include some weapons training as well, to help act as an equilizer.

After spending time learning those things you should be set for most circumstances. If you want to spend time fine tuning your training and physical abilities I would then pick a style to study more long term.

OK, after reading throught he "which martial art should I learn" thread, I think it's be instructive for a discussion as to which martial art is most effective for self defense in real life situations. Why's would also be helpful. Ready, set, go!

Anything that gets you to practice hitting people and getting hit in an alive training scenario where you and your partner have conflicting goals. It builds skills and confidence. Note that running is always the better option. If there isn't full contact sparring (I use the term here to describe sparring which is not overly limited to small areas of contact, not 100% force), then skip it.

You are correct, running away is the best option. The problem with sparing at not full force is that it teaches you to be soft, and that a hit doesn't hurt that much. It makes you overly willing to sacrifice your position for a good strike, which in real life could see you seriously injured or dead. Also, really effective styles should incorporate grapples which often only work if they are causing pain. If you do them at full force you will be damaging your sparring partners joints, and if you don't they wont work like they do in real life, again giving you false feedback. If the style doesn't teach you how to viciously cripple someone quickly and efficiently, it's worse than useless, especially against more than one person. Now, back to the original topic: There are three distinct kinds of fighting, often a fight will move from one kind to another progressively: 1. Punching + kicking - Kicking isn't as effective as you might think as most starts fight at too close a range to kick effectively. Also if you're on a slippery surface, using one of your legs to kick might not be so great. I've never met someone who could kick better than I could rush them and throw them off balance. Boxing is really good for getting you good at punching, ducking, weaving and covering. One of the big things I see people not doing is covering correctly. The difference between sparring in boxing and full contact martial arts is boxing has rules to limit damage, and you wear gloves (and usually face masks). This is why it should be mixed with another martial arts to teach you critical places to punch. A good Karate school can teach you punching and kicking too, as well as plenty of other forms. 2. Grappling - This is closer range than punching and kicking, and is usually very quickly over. It's possibly one of the more useful martial arts. Judo and Jujitsu are good at teaching grappling, Karate can also teach you some, but generally isn't as good as it crosses over with strikes too much to focus properly. 3. Groundwork - This is where you end up if you loose the grappling section. Basically, you don't ever want to end up here, and if you are here, you want to get back on your feet as quickly as you can. If you are against one person it's fine, but if there is more than one person attacking you, wasting your time ground fighting can get you kicked in the face. Judo is good for ground work. Kung-Fu will teach you all about 1 + 2, and a bit of 3, but it's much harder to learn and takes far longer to get good at it. Someone who has done boxing seriously for 2 years will beat the snot out of someone who's been doing Kung-Fu seriously for the same amount of time. Having said that someone who has been doing Kung-Fu seriously for 5 years will probably beat the snot out of someone who's done Boxing for the same amount of time. Basically because Boxing is simple, and drills basics, but lacks more complex attacks and defenses. In real life fighting situations though, simple is probably good, especially if you're not devoting your whole life to learning the style. I've heard good and bad things about Krav Maga, but it's fairly new and I haven't done martial arts in a while so haven't tried it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JammieDodger

You can't deal out some pain by running. Also, the last thing I'd want to do is turn my back on someone who is trying to injure or kill me. For a start running would give me under 50% odds and I wouldn't know just how fast the enemy could run.

You don't have to run that fast. Most people wont want to chase you, or if they do they wont chase you far. Also, you have no idea how good your opponent is at fighting either. If they are better than you, then you're fucked. At least if you run away and they are faster than you, you have the choice of turning and fighting. If you fight, engage it can often be harder to run (also, if you've already landed a shithouse punch and they know they are better than you, they are more likely to chase you).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syl

I often hear the "drunk at a bar" story or the "hit on your girl" story (mind you, the baseball story is original). Personally, I've never, ever seen a fight start at a bar where both participants weren't drunk as hell and egging the other on.

One of the guys at my Dojo was attacked by someone at the bar because the attackers female friend he had a thing for had been hitting on the defender all night. The attacker was drunk, and the defender was off guard but easily blocked three punches using a sticky hands technique, and was "Thinking 'I should do something about this and punch him back'" when the attacker backed off an apologized. Fight over, my fellow Kempo practitioner left the bar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NorCal

As for knife techniques B.S. There are ways to train for just about every type of potential violent situation and being attacked with a knife is no different. Just as most guys now exactly fuck all about throwing a punch most people know nothing about knife fighting. I would take a well prepared open handed gent over Joe Jack Off with a knife any day (not that having a knife is not an advantage, clearly it is, but it can be overcome)

Ha ha, oh man. Yes you can try to defend against anything and there's a technique for most kinds of attacks, including knives. How effective they are varies. While knowing martial arts raises your chances significantly over an idiot when you're both unarmed, knowing really good knife fighting doesn't give you a better chance of winning than joe dumbshit with a stabber. Chances are, even if you win that he will have cut you badly enough that you are now in serious need of hospital, while if you'd just run the fuck away you'd be fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jml90

A gun or kicking somone in the face is pretty effective.

A gun is sort of effective if you know how to use it (most people don't) and are willing to kill someone (most people aren't) and are in a country that allows you to carry them (I certainly am not). Kicking someone in the face is a really good way of getting the snot beaten out of you. While you're busy trying to get your leg up to their kisser, they've had time to beat the living shit out of you three to four times over. For most people (Chuck Norris not included) kicks over waist height are not particularly useful in most self defense situations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr T

What I really want to know is which martial art is best for offense? Which style would be best for just attacking people without provocation?

Ask a question, get an answer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by m@T

I am not a big believer in the 'it all ends on the ground' theory. I think most fights end with someone clinching up, absolutely, but I have always been skeptical of the off-mat application of BJJ....and I say this as a BJJ student. Do it outside, end up with dirt in your eyes, cant see shit...do it in a bar, cut self on broken glass, and that doesn't even get into the 'I took one guy down, had his arm twisted backwards, till his friend kicked me in the head' issue.

Almost all fights DO end up on the ground. You can even tell the winner really easily: He's the one still standing up. With very few exceptions the fight ends as soon as you hit the ground. You lost.

yea if you cant see he may be shorter, but is also stockier. were both in the heavy weight division, so i dont know what youre getting at. hes probably around 185, while i was around 195.
and i have two more videos of me there, where im fighting bigger guys. either way you probably have a low self esteem! blah! and to kwilk, yea i know i look retarded, its because my coach said bring short shorts, and the i wore the huge protector etc so i look like an idiot!

It was absurd, and it always amazes me how incapable most "martial artists" are of throwing a punch without doing one or more of the following: (a) Angling or closing their hand incorrectly and putting themselves in a position to break it, (b) Aiming for the wrong part of a person and putting themselves in a position to break their hand, (

Most people training solely for self defense are probably better off learning to use palm strikes and hammerfist strikes rather then closed fist strikes, at least initially. Even a well trained person can injure their hand pretty easily.

Most people training solely for self defense are probably better off learning to use palm strikes and hammerfist strikes rather then closed fist strikes, at least initially. Even a well trained person can injure their hand pretty easily.

The objective isn't to not injure yourself, but to rather injure them enough that they don't want to hurt you anymore, while keeping your injury to recoverable levels. Open palm strikes, when done poorly, can break fingers very easily. Although hammer fist strikes would be useful, they are limited in their application.

As for knife techniques B.S. There are ways to train for just about every type of potential violent situation and being attacked with a knife is no different. Just as most guys now exactly fuck all about throwing a punch most people know nothing about knife fighting. I would take a well prepared open handed gent over Joe Jack Off with a knife any day (not that having a knife is not an advantage, clearly it is, but it can be overcome)

I'm going to stay away from replying to anything else in this thread because I've said my piece, but I have to absolutely refute this. This could absolutely not be more wrong. Yes, there are very few people on this Earth that have ever been trained to use knives in "close combat." All that does is make them as dangerous to themselves as they are to you. The loser of a knife fight dies, the winner goes to the hospital or bleeds out in an alley somewhere. Knives are worse than guns, people don't hear stabbings and call the cops, people don't get hit by recoil with knives and run away, people aren't intimidated by the knife in their own hand. They don't think about it. They don't bring their arm up so you can do some fucking Aikido move and get under them and get them off-balance. They don't stand in one place and wait for you to grab their wrist so you can do some awesome wrist-lock maneuver. Knives are a wild card, it doesn't matter if you're some streetfight super gangster and you've been training in martial arts and you're tough as shit. You're not made of stone. This is a horrible way of thinking, this is a stupid way of thinking, this is a way of thinking that gets people killed. One of the reasons you don't want to get into fights in the first place (besides the fact that they're ultimately moronic and that the human body has awkward "weaknesses" that could lead you to severely injuring and crippling yourself for life just by falling down abnormally) is because you don't know who has what. You don't know who has a knife, you can't always see a knife, and you don't need range for a knife (which you do with a firearm, obviously). There is a reason police officers stay back from people with knives, but if they have enough of a presence rush people with blunt objects. You can't accidentally impale yourself on a baseball bat, in a scuffle on the ground you don't have to worry about an ASP baton hitting you in the wrong spot and severing an artery that leaves you dead before EMS can arrive. Small knives are the single most dangerous object to everyone in close combat, and believing that you can ever at any time be capable of disarming someone with a knife in close combat is dangerous stupid, it is false bravado and confidence that will ultimately hurt you.

BUT distance is your friend, dont clinch unless you have to. So Muay Thai for instance where you actively look for a clinch is a bad habit on the street - it closes down your options, commits you too much. Knees and kicks are no good - you need both feet on the ground.

Basically put your hands up, and try to de-escalate. If this doesnt work, when in they are in range, hit first and hit really really hard, on the chin.

If it "goes to ground" get back up. The best ground fight training you can do is to role play "intensely" being taken down and fighting to get back up.

If you want to learn self defense then go study with someone whose focus is on realistic self defense.

I dont think anyone would refute this, the issue itself is in the finding of the someone. Please find a single dojo/kwoon/school website that says that it teaches a form of self defense that is unrealistic and thoroughly useless in terms of real world applicability. Unfortunately there are a zillion schools, teaching people useless and pointless crap and overinflating their egos while underdeveloping their skills, and ultimately doing more harm than good...and as a beginner walking in, there is no telling good from bad. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going back to practice my siu nim tao

Open palm strikes, when done poorly, can break fingers very easily. Although hammer fist strikes would be useful, they are limited in their application.

In a relatively short time you can learn to do palm strikes safely with little chance of breaking fingers, where even a trained boxer like Mike Tyson broke bones in his hand while he was in a street fight.

In a relatively short time you can learn to do palm strikes safely with little chance of breaking fingers, where even a trained boxer like Mike Tyson broke bones in his hand while he was in a street fight.

How you hit the target is important, but where you hit is more important. If I ever get into street fight and have to hit someone with my hand then it'll be soft parts of the body and the face.

I'm going to stay away from replying to anything else in this thread because I've said my piece, but I have to absolutely refute this.

This could absolutely not be more wrong. Yes, there are very few people on this Earth that have ever been trained to use knives in "close combat." All that does is make them as dangerous to themselves as they are to you. The loser of a knife fight dies, the winner goes to the hospital or bleeds out in an alley somewhere. Knives are worse than guns, people don't hear stabbings and call the cops, people don't get hit by recoil with knives and run away, people aren't intimidated by the knife in their own hand. They don't think about it. They don't bring their arm up so you can do some fucking Aikido move and get under them and get them off-balance. They don't stand in one place and wait for you to grab their wrist so you can do some awesome wrist-lock maneuver. Knives are a wild card, it doesn't matter if you're some streetfight super gangster and you've been training in martial arts and you're tough as shit. You're not made of stone.

This is a horrible way of thinking, this is a stupid way of thinking, this is a way of thinking that gets people killed. One of the reasons you don't want to get into fights in the first place (besides the fact that they're ultimately moronic and that the human body has awkward "weaknesses" that could lead you to severely injuring and crippling yourself for life just by falling down abnormally) is because you don't know who has what. You don't know who has a knife, you can't always see a knife, and you don't need range for a knife (which you do with a firearm, obviously).

There is a reason police officers stay back from people with knives, but if they have enough of a presence rush people with blunt objects. You can't accidentally impale yourself on a baseball bat, in a scuffle on the ground you don't have to worry about an ASP baton hitting you in the wrong spot and severing an artery that leaves you dead before EMS can arrive. Small knives are the single most dangerous object to everyone in close combat, and believing that you can ever at any time be capable of disarming someone with a knife in close combat is dangerous stupid, it is false bravado and confidence that will ultimately hurt you.

+1 Aside from running or having a firearm the only effective defense to a knife is a willingness to get cut.

Also a comment on guns generally: the worst thing someone can do is pull a gun and wave it about- very theatrical. If you have to show a gun it should be only because you're in such a bad situation you need to use it. Duh, even I know that.